Documentation Installer Beat

Revision as of 22:31, 7 October 2008 by Kwade(talk | contribs)(updating formatting; wondering if we should push _all_ installer notes to the Installation Guide, except for last-minute notes that come up after the IG is frozen for GA.)

Anaconda is the name of the Fedora installer. This section outlines issues related to Anaconda and installing Fedora 10.

If you intend to download the Fedora DVD ISO image, keep in mind that not all file downloading tools can accommodate files larger than 2 GiB in size. The programs wget 1.9.1-16 and above, curl, and ncftpget do not have this limitation, and can successfully download files larger than 2 GiB. BitTorrent is another method for downloading large files. For information about obtaining and using the torrent file, refer to http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/.

Anaconda tests the integrity of installation media by default. This function works with the CD, DVD, hard drive ISO, and NFS ISO installation methods. The Fedora Project recommends that you test all installation media before starting the installation process and before reporting any installation-related bugs. Many of the bugs reported are actually due to improperly-burned CD or DVDs.

The mediacheck function is highly sensitive and may report some usable discs as faulty. This result is often caused by disc writing software that does not include padding when creating discs from ISO files. To use this test, at boot time hit any key to enter the menu. Then press the [Tab] key, add the option mediacheck to the parameter list, and press [Enter] .

After you complete the mediacheck function successfully, reboot to return the system to its normal state. On many systems this results in a faster installation process from the disc. You may skip the mediacheck option when rebooting.

BitTorrent Automatically Verifies File Integrity.If you use BitTorrent, any files you download are automatically validated. If your file completes downloading you do not need to check it. Once you burn your CD or DVD, however, you should still use mediacheck to test the integrity of the media.

To perform memory testing before you install Fedora, press any key to enter the boot menu, then select Memory Test. This option runs the Memtest86 standalone memory testing software in place of Anaconda. Memtest86 memory testing continues until you press the [Esc] key.

Fedora 10 supports graphical FTP and HTTP installations. However, the installer image must either fit in RAM or appear on local storage, such as the installation DVD or Live Media. Therefore, only systems with more than 192MiB of RAM or that boot from the installation DVD or Live Media can use the graphical installer. Systems with 192MiB RAM or less fall back to using the text-based installer automatically. If you prefer to use the text-based installer, type linux text at the boot: prompt.

Changes in Anaconda

Built-in support for resizing ext2, ext3, and ntfs partitions.

Support for installation to encrypted block devices, including the root filesystem.

Second stage installer location now independent of software package location.

Native installation to x86 and x86_64 machines using EFI and booting via grub.

Hardware probing and detection now based on HAL and udev.

Support for persistence in Live images on USB flash media.

Installation Related Issues

When PXE booting and using a .iso file for the installation media via NFS you are now required to add method=nfsiso:server:/path to the command line.

IDE Device Names

Use of /dev/hdX on i386 and x86_64 for IDE drives changed to /dev/sdX in Fedora 7. If you are upgrading from an earlier version than Fedora 7, you need to research about the importance of labeling devices for upgrades and any partition limitations.

IDE RAID

Not all IDE RAID controllers are supported. If your RAID controller is not yet supported by dmraid, you may combine drives into RAID arrays by configuring Linux software RAID. For supported controllers, configure the RAID functions in the computer BIOS.

Multiple NICs and PXE Installation

Some servers with multiple network interfaces may not assign eth0 to the first network interface as BIOS knows it, which can cause the installer to try using a different network interface than was used by PXE. To change this behavior, use the following in pxelinux.cfg/* config files:

IPAPPEND 2
APPEND ksdevice=bootif

The configuration options above causes the installer to use the same network interface as BIOS and PXE use. You can also use the following option:

ksdevice=link

This option causes the installer to use the first network device it finds that is linked to a network switch.

Upgrade Related Issues

Emacs

If you are upgrading to Fedora 9 and use emacs, you must upgrade to the latest version of emacs for your prior release to ensure a clean upgrade. Fedora 8 users must have emacs-22.1-10.fc8 or later.

SCSI driver partition limits

Whereas older IDE drivers supported up to 63 partitions per device, SCSI devices are limited to 15 partitions per device. Anaconda uses the libata driver in the same fashion as the rest of Fedora, so it is unable to detect more than 15 partitions on an IDE disk during the installation or upgrade process.

If you are upgrading a system with more than 15 partitions, you may need to migrate the disk to Logical Volume Management (LVM). This restriction may cause conflicts with other installed systems if they do not support LVM. Most modern Linux distributions support LVM and drivers are available for other operating systems as well.

Disk partitions must be labelled

A change in the way that the linux kernel handles storage devices means that device names like /dev/hdX or /dev/sdX may differ from the values used in earlier releases. Anaconda solves this problem by relying on partition labels or UUIDs for finding devices. If these are not present, then Anaconda presents a warning indicating that partitions need to be labelled and that the upgrade can not proceed. Systems that use Logical Volume Management (LVM) and the device mapper usually do not require relabeling.

To check disk partition labels

To view partition labels, boot the existing Fedora installation, and enter the following at a terminal prompt:

/sbin/blkid

Confirm that each volume line in the list has a LABEL= value, as shown below:

To set disk partition labels

For ext2 and ext3 partitions without a label, use the following command:

su -c 'e2label /dev/example f7-slash'

For a VFAT filesystem use dosfslabel from the dosfstools package, and for NTFS filesystem use ntfslabel from the ntfsprogs package. Before rebooting the machine, also update the file system mount entries, and the GRUB kernel root entry.

Update the file system mount entries

If any filesystem labels were added or modified, then the device entries in /etc/fstab must be adjusted to match:

su -c 'cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.orig'
su -c 'gedit /etc/fstab'

An example of a mount by label entry is:

LABEL=f7-slash / ext3 defaults 1 1

Update the grub.conf kernel root entry

If the label for the / (root) filesystem was modified, the kernel boot parameter in the grub configuration file must also be modified:

su -c 'gedit /boot/grub/grub.conf'

A matching example kernel grub line is:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.20-1.2948.fc6 ro root=LABEL=f7-slash rhgb quiet

Test changes made to labels

If partition labels were adjusted, or the /etc/fstab file modified, then boot the existing Fedora installation to confirm that all partitions still mount normally and login is successful. When complete, reboot with the installation media to start the installer and begin the upgrade.

Upgrades versus fresh installations

In general, fresh installations are recommended over upgrades, particularly for systems that include software from third-party repositories. Third-party packages remaining from a previous installation may not work as expected on an upgraded Fedora system. If you decide to perform an upgrade anyway, the following information may be helpful:

Before you upgrade, back up the system completely. In particular, preserve /etc, /home, and possibly /opt and /usr/local if customized packages are installed there. You may wish to use a multi-boot approach with a "clone" of the old installation on alternate partition(s) as a fallback. In that case, create alternate boot media, such as a GRUB boot floppy.

Backups of configurations in /etc are also useful in reconstructing system settings after a fresh installation.

After you complete the upgrade, run the following command:

rpm -qa --last > RPMS_by_Install_Time.txt

Inspect the end of the output for packages that pre-date the upgrade. Remove or upgrade those packages from third-party repositories, or otherwise deal with them as necessary. Some previously installed packages may no longer be available in any configured repository. To list all these packages, use the following command:

su -c 'yum list extras'

Kickstart HTTP Issue

When using a Kickstart configuration file via HTTP, kickstart file retrieval may fail with an error that indicates the file could not be retrieved. Click the OK button several times without making modifications to override this error successfully. As a workaround, use one of the other supported methods to retrieve Kickstart configurations.